“Mouse,” said her husband to Lady Kenilworth, onemorning at Homburg, “do you see that large pale womanover there, with a face like a crumpled whitey-brownpaper bag?”

Lady Kenilworth looked.

“Yes,” she said, impatiently. “Yes. Well?—what?—why?”

“Well, she rolls—she absolutely rolls—wallows—biggestpile ever made out West.”

His wife looked again with a little more attention atthe large figure of a lady, superbly clothed, who sat aloneunder a tree, and had that desolate air of “not being init” which betrays the unelect.

“Nobody discovered her? Nobody taken her up?” sheasked, still looking through her eye-glass.

“Well, old Khris a little; but Khris can’t get anybodyon now. He does ’em more harm than good. He’s deadbroke.”

His wife smiled.

“They must be new, indeed, if they don’t know that.Would they be rich enough to buy Vale Royal of Gerald?”

“Lord, yes; rich enough to buy a hundred Gerrys andVales Royal. I know it for a fact from men in the City:they are astonishing—biggest income in the United States,after Vanderbilt and Pullman.”

“American, then?”

“No; made their ‘stiff’ there, and come home to spendit.”

“Name?”

[6]“Massarene. Cotton to her if you can. There’s moneyto be made.”

“Hush! somebody will hear.”

Her lord chuckled.

“Does anybody know these dear souls and their kindfor any other reason than the flimsy? She’s looking yourway. You’ll have to introduce yourself, for she don’tknow anybody here. Make Boo fall down and break hernose in front of her.”

Boo was a four-year-old angel with lovely black eyesand bright yellow hair, the second child of the Kenilworthfamily. Accompanied by one of her nurses, shewas playing near them, with a big rosy bladder tied to astring.